April 11 (Bloomberg) -- BlackBerry, the Canadian smartphone
maker, fell the most in two months after analysts said sales of
its new Z10 device are showing troubling signs. The company
denied one of the reports.

BlackBerry slid 7.8 percent to $13.55 at the close in New
York, the biggest decline since Feb. 13.

“The U.S. launch of the Z10 started poorly and weakened
significantly as the days passed,” Joseph Fersedi, an analyst
at ITG Investment Research, said today in a note, citing
information from independent dealers. Some U.S. retailers are
seeing a significant increase in customers returning their Z10s
because they find the interface unintuitive, Detwiler Fenton &
Co. said today.

“In several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a
phenomenon we have never seen before,” Detwiler Fenton said.

BlackBerry called Detwiler Fenton’s claim “absolutely
false,” according to an e-mailed statement. “Our data shows
that return rates for BlackBerry Z10 devices both in the U.S.
and on a global basis are in line with or better than our
expectations and are consistent with return rates for other
premium smartphones in the market today,” it said.

The company is counting on the touch-screen Z10, its first
smartphone to use the BlackBerry 10 platform, to revive growth
after losing ground to Apple Inc.’s iPhone and devices that use
Google Inc.’s Android software. Retailers in the U.K. and Canada
are taking pre-orders for a second BlackBerry 10 phone, the Q10,
which has a physical keyboard.